EMI 2001 Broadcast Camera - BBC TV Studio N, Manchester

BBC Studio N, Manchester was the North West of England's news studio in Piccadilly, Manchester until 1981 when it moved to NBH, Oxford Road, Manchester.

In May 1981 I decided to take my portable JVC VHS recorder in to the studio and record for posterity a few elements, and I'm glad I did. Here, at lunchtime when everyone was away I switched the lights on, panned a couple of them on to the subject (OK there is a camera shadow at one point), set the iris and black level for an average shot and let the video AGC of the recorder do the rest :)

The EMI 2001 cameras were not to be moved to the new Studio B in New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, Manchester, but from what I remember sold on to either that great TV junk yard in Birmingham, or to Nigeria, which the BBC had a connection with, as noticed on courses at BBC Wood Norton Training Centre, Evesham, where a number of students were Nigerian.

This video gives a short tour of the EMI 2001 broadcast camera - the sound is mute. In the 70s there were three 2001s in this small studio, but shortly before the move there were four! 'Nationwide' was broadcast from this studio for a week, when it did a short tour of being broadcast from the regions one year - space was then very tight!

The head amplifiers of the four plumbicon tubes (red, green, blue and luminance) were the valve version using the E88CC valve. The zoom lens, which slots into the body of the camera i.e. doesn't hang off the front of it, is the usual 10:1 for this 625-line camera (there were 525-line NTSC versions used in the States), giving a maximum wide angle of 50 degrees. The cameras are mounted on Fulmer peds.

The EMI 2001 was first produced in 1966 and introduced into many BBC studios and OB units from 1968. Also several ITV companies purchased or leased the camera. The camera had the artifact of comet tails, produced where very bright lights were in the frame. Top of the Pops recordings are a good example of these.

The video was recorded on JVCs first portable VHS recorder, by plugging the output of the 2001 camera into the video-in socket. The picture quality on the VHS tape is much better than that shown on YouTube.